Sunday, December 05, 2004

Cuthill Rant series # 2

Had a good chat with my new evangelism buddy Scott Grieve on Friday about "the box", which we defined as "church-on-sunday" type christianity. The box, as we defined it, is the mentality that sitting in church meetings is paramount.
You've probably hear this line yourself in some form, about how being "at the meetings" is someohow equated with spiritual maturity. WRONGO! This mentality was around in the days of Ezekiel as well:
Ezekiel 33:30 "As for you, son of man, the children of your people are talking about you beside the walls and in the doors of the houses; and they speak to one another, everyone saying to his brother, "Please come and hear what the word is that comes from the LORD.' 31So they come to you as people do, they sit before you as My people, and they hear your words, but they do not do them; for with their mouth they show much love, but their hearts pursue their own gain. 32Indeed you are to them as a very lovely song of one who has a pleasant voice and can play well on an instrument; for they hear your words, but they do not do them.

The two fallicies of this "box" thinking are this:

1. It promotes "knowledge which puffs up", instead of practical "wisdom" that "understands his way". The key is applying the knowledge to "their way". Where the rubber meets the road. When does that actually happen at church? One guy talks for an hour or so and then we pray that everyone who hears applies what he said, but we have no mechanism for actually applying it. Imagine a coach who gave his team 30 minutes of instruction a week, but never practised - then expected them to win when it came time for the game! Absurd. Such is the absurdity with this "box" line of thinking.

2. It promotes inactivity, and is revealed as lacking when activity is introduced. Some of my best "church" friends, who knew all the right things to say and went to all the right meetings were virtually speechless when confronted by an unbeliever, or were terrified when it actually came to doing that which we believe. Either that or "church talk" was spewed out, reminiscent of the modern Pez dispenser (which can, by nature, only dispense what was entered and not process the candy for itself):
. Not to say that evangelism is paramount either, so you can draw your own parallels with helping the poor, orphans, widows, fasting, prayer, etc.etc. Once I called up a very well respected preacher and asked the "what is the right way to fast & pray". Their response almost slew me..."I don't know, I've never done it".

Astonishing, however the dilemma for our generation is...what is the remedy. How do we break out of this "box" mentality? The comments section is open....